Historical debate over the usage of "Persia" or "Iran" to refer to the country
"Persia (name)" redirects here. For other names Persia and other named Persia, see Persia (disambiguation).
1872 map of the Ottoman Middle East, with "Iran or Persia" shaded pink.
In the Western world, Persia (or one of its cognates) was historically the common name used for Iran.[1] On the Nowruz of 1935, Reza Shah officially asked foreign delegates to use the Persian term Iran, the endonym of the country, in formal correspondence. Subsequently, the common adjective for citizens of Iran changed from Persian to Iranian. In 1959, the government of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Reza Shah's son, announced that both "Persia" and "Iran" could be used interchangeably, in formal correspondence.[2] However, the issue is still debated (see § Recent debate) among Iranians.[3]
^Fishman, Joshua A. (2010). Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity: Disciplinary and Regional Perspectives. Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 266. ISBN 978-0195374926. 'Iran' and 'Persia' are synonymous. The former has always been used by the Iranian speaking peoples themselves, while the latter has served as the international name of the country in various languages.
^Yarshater, Ehsan (1989). "Communication". Iranian Studies. XXII (1): 62–65. doi:10.1080/00210868908701726. JSTOR 4310640. Reprinted online as "Persia or Iran, Persian or Farsi" (Archived 2010-10-24 at the Wayback Machine).
^Cite error: The named reference Majd2008a was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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